Step 2: Get so over-excited about every class you read about that you consider changing your concentration.

8:00 p.m.: You’re getting ready; you’re pumped, you deserve this. You’ve had a long week, you’ve spent countless hours in the SciLi… So what if you blackout and wake up at 2 p.m tomorrow? The memories you don’t remember will be totally worth it.

9:00 p.m.: You start texting your friends, trying to figure out who’s up for the 24-hour rager you’re envisioning. “Sorry, I’m studying for exams next week :/” and “I don’t know… I’m pretty busy with work.” F@ck. After texting eight other people, you reach out to your freshman-year roommate that you talk to occasionally. They’re down.

10:00 p.m.: You find yourself at a dorm party. It seems like it might be a birthday, but you don’t know the host. Somehow, it was much more glorious when you were envisioning it a few hours ago. Kind of cramped and hot, when you think about it. At least the lecture hall had ventilation, you find yourself thinking. Wait. Why the f#ck are you comparing this party to your exam?

11:00 p.m.: After a few drinks and a new location, you’re finally starting to have a good time. The white-girl-decor swirls together. Kind of looks like a bunch of hexagons. Hexagons. Where have you seen those before… A chill runs down your spine. You start thinking about the cyclical carbon chains on your organic chemistry midterm. Snap out of it, you think to yourself. It’s over, you don’t have to worry anymore. You’re enjoying rum-and-coke out of a red solo cup, you’re the epitome of relaxation. But… is it over? Did the professor schedule another midterm within the last two days? Maybe you should just check Canvas to make sure. You barely resist. Your thumb twitches

12:00 p.m.: You notice the cute girl from section standing to the side. Intoxicated, you decide to shoot your shot. You walk up to her, ready to deliver your smoothest one liner. “What… how did you think the exam went?” you hear yourself slur. F#ck! Can you relate to people on any level besides academic?! Why did you think that would be a good opener?? This isn’t freshman year anymore, that shit doesn’t slide. “I think it was okay, haha,” she says. You’re too drunk to discern if it’s a genuine smile or not (spoiler: it’s not). She moves towards her friends.

1:00 a.m.: Normally, this is when your night would start, but after a week of surviving on three hours of sleep a night, you’re ready to turn in. You turn to say goodbye to your old roommate, but you lost them a few parties ago. Damn. You start the trek home.

11:00 a.m: You wake up, groggy, dry-mouthed, and with a headache. You haven’t felt this shitty in the last two weeks, you think happily. You try to keep your exam-paper-flashbacks at bay. Finally, the freedom to get f*cked up.

There is something about the last two weeks of school that makes you want to curl up in bed and sleep. Or pull out your phone and scroll endlessly through the deep recesses of social media. Chalk it up to a combination of looming finals, the 4:30 p.m. darkness (wtf), or the mysteriously gross plague hitting everyone, but overall, it’s clear that motivation is at an all-time low.

So on a nicer note, are you the kind of person who enjoys small tasks that lead to mega rewards? Interested in the idea of making someone’s day without getting off the couch? There’s an app for that.

Brightenjust hit the app store and is already sweeping across college campuses. Its goal is simple: to provide an outlet for friends to say nice things to each other. On this app, you can follow your friends, like and comment on their posts, and send your own messages (called “brightens”) to those you care about. Adorable, right? Austin Kevitch, the app’s founder and CEO, explained that Brighten is “the first social app based on positivity and the easiest way to make your friends smile.”

According to the Brighten page, “anonymity can be used for good.” Each commenter has a color, but that’s it. Although “brightens” can be sent to anyone in your contact list, your name will never be shared. Instead of reading nasty Yaks or those (occasionally) freaky Brown Bear Admirers Posts, Brighten exists for friendship vibes only. Hate speech is not tolerated and romantic posts are definitely the exception, not the rule.

uhhh… no thanks?

During this final stretch, small acts of kindness can go a crazy long way. What’s more, there is scientific evidence that making your friends happy actually boosts your mood. Amazing.

With all the well-deserved hype around the events of this weekend’s Better World by Design, now in its eighth year, it was easy for many students to forget about the newcomer to the already-ample lineup of fall conferences at Brown: Startup@Brown. Organized and run by Hack@Brown (Valentin Perez ’18 is lead organizer for both) and the Brown Entrepaneurship Program, Startup@Brown was a weekend-long conference in Alumnae Hall and Smitty B focused on connecting students with startups. Through a series of speeches, fairs, office hours and workshops taking place from the 26th-27th, Startup@Brown gave students a crash course in entrepreneurship. Blog checked it out to see just what exactly startup culture is all about, and whether its correspondent’s idea for a chain of nightclubs inside giant floating zeppelins could make it to an initial seed round.

The conference opened with a keynote by Eveline Buchatskiy, director at Techstars Boston, on the general path of beginning a startup, and was followed by lunch and the general startup fair. At the fair, roughly 20 startups and startup-related firms gathered to speak with students and recruit potential candidates for internships and jobs.

The Startup Fair

The general atmosphere was one of enthusiasm. According to Jason Miller, a representative from data software firm Cloudera, “the fact that [Startup@Brown] was selective was really special. It was branded well, and it makes sense why the companies you invited are here.” Miller also emphasized the extent to which Brown alums and students are enmeshed within startup culture across the country. At Cloudera, “two of the core engineers went to Brown, and about almost a third of our entire data science department is Brown-educated.”

This recurrent theme — Brown’s close relationship with the technology industry and startup culture — often helped make the event feel like less of a professional networking event and more of a gathering of friends and former fellow students united by an interest in entrepreneurship. Brown student and Startup@Brown attendee Hans Wang ’17, a CS and Economics dual concentrator, noted that he’d “seen a lot of former TAs here with the companies.”

No, Spring Awakening was not written by William Shakespeare. But SotG still wants to bring us this cool rock musical about adolescence and sex and stuff. Directed by Jenn Maley ’16, this play is likely to be pretty popular, so be sure to check the Facebook page on Tuesday at midnight for tickets.

This one actually was written by Shakespeare! Re-imagined by Jane Nichols, a renowned clown teacher, the play is set in a 1930’s “Hopper-esque” world, so not just another Twelfth Night. You can get tickets here, and remember that time slots are the same as Spring Awakening‘s if you’re looking to go to both!

Attention upperclassmen: as you know, the Rest of Your Life is approaching. If you’re thinking you’re not ready to leave the learning behind yet, come to this Q&A panel discussion on graduate school, featuring administrators from the Dean of the College’s Office, Brown’s Graduate School, and other student support services.